Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.9

Summary: John demanded the young man's soul; the bishop wept and said he was dead to God, now a robber in the mountains.

Greek text · Stählin 3:189

ἅπερ οὐκ ἔλαβε, συκοφαντεῖσθαι, καὶ οὔτε πιστεύειν εἶχεν ὑπὲρ ὧν οὐκ εἶχεν οὔτε ἀπιστεῖν Ἰωάννῃ· ὡς δὲ »τὸν νεανίσκον« εἶπεν »ἀπαιτῶ καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ«, στενάξας κάτωθεν ὁ πρεσβύτης καί τι καὶ ἐπιδακρύσας, »ἐκεῖνος« ἔφη »τέθνηκε«. »πῶς καὶ τίνα θάνατον;« »θεῷ τέθνηκεν« εἶπεν· »ἀπέβη γὰρ πονηρὸς καὶ ἐξώλης καί, τὸ κεφάλαιον. λῃστής, καὶ νῦν ἀντὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τὸ ὄρος κατείληφε μεθʼ ὁμοίου στρατιωτικοῦ.«

English · Claude translation

he had not received, and he could neither believe about what he did not have nor disbelieve John. But when John said, “I demand the young man and the soul of the brother,” the old man groaned deeply, and even shed tears, and said, “He is dead.” “How, and by what death?” “He is dead to God,” he said; “for he turned out wicked and depraved and, to sum up, a robber; and now, instead of the church, he has taken to the mountain with a troop like himself.”

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:189 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Quis dives salvetur, Fragmente, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 3 (GCS 17, 1909), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Stählin, GCS 17. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1909); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Church office

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 42.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/42/9/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 42.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/42/9/).